recorderjournal.com

"It will happen rapidly", Trump said during Friday's news conference with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at the White House.

It looks like President Donald Trump's promise to "SEE YOU IN COURT" might have been an empty threat.

In a separate federal ruling in Seattle, a different federal judge put the ban on hold nationwide; it is that judge's decision that the White House has challenged. During the weekend, the president labeled a judge who ruled on his executive order a "so-called judge" and referred to the ruling as "ridiculous".

ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt said the government isn't correct and the case should be allowed to continue.

Two administration officials said one option is rewriting the travel order to address the concerns raised by judges.

The judges also said they took note of the "serious nature" of the states' claim that the travel ban, because it targets Muslim-majority nations and provides exceptions for members of persecuted religious minorities, constitutes religious discrimination.

One of the possible changes is explicit language that the travel moratorium won't be applied to legal residents from those countries, which was one of the points of confusion when this order was issued.

But there is no question that its rollout was sloppy and arrogant - and that includes the legal defense the government mounted when inevitably challenged in court.

The ban was set to expire in 90 days, meaning it could run its course before the Supreme Court would take up the issue.

The Supreme Court is now one short of its nine-member strength and ideologically split, with four liberal justices and four conservatives, pending Senate confirmation of Trump's conservative nominee, Neil Gorsuch, to the bench.

Blumenthal told reporters that he had told the judge he would need to condemn Trump's attacks on judicial independence publicly.

"All options are being considered", Erez Reuveni said. It's the first day on the job for new Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who was sworn in at the White House earlier Thursday by Vice President Mike Pence.

This week, three judges - Michelle T. Friedland, William C. Canby Jr. and Richard R. Clifton - from the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously upheld Robart.

A federal judge in Seattle conducted a hearing last Friday over the states' requests that the ban be stopped.

The US justice department has defended the ban and is urging an appeals court to reinstate it in the interests of national security.

In a flurry of legal filings, the Trump administration said the ban is necessary to protect national security.

Critics have called Trump's order a "Muslim ban".

The appeals court sided with the administration on just one issue.

Wittes, a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution think tank, dismissed a large chunk of the 9th Circuit's opinion as "moral throat clearing and virtue signaling" that's fun to read but ultimately not what the case is about. In the event of a tie, the Ninth Circuit's ruling would stand.

"There's a distinct risk in moving this too quickly", Blackman said.

Trump continued to conjure images of unspecified danger, saying he had "learned tremendous things that you could only learn, frankly, if you were in a certain position, namely president".

The case will be heard by Judge Leonie Brinkema, who was appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1993.